Lets make a new list for everyone who is trying to reduce chemical sprays. The reasons to reduce spray are many ranging from cost to long term health concerns. Please feel free to add to the list or comment why it doesn’t work in your area. The more spray required of trees the less of them i plant. The higher spray fruits like apples, plums , peaches etc. I tend to grow less of them.
No spray list is below
Blackberries
Raspberries
Gooseberries
Pears (not all pears)
Persimmons
Pawpaw
Jujube
Mulberry
Che
Goumi
Autumn olive
Buffalo berry
Aronia
Seaberry
Concord Grapes (not all grapes)
Beach plums
Nanking cherry
Nut trees and shrubs eg. Hazelnuts
Low spray but need sprayed below
Carmine jewell cherry
I want to point out i’m not totally against sprays to grow foods. The fact is i have used lots of sprays like roundup when growing crops. I have used many fungicides, pestides etc as needed. All that said as we age we learn and become wiser. Trees like pawpaw have natural resistance to many insects. They grow free of problems more domesticated fruit trees have. Why not grow a tree that is easier to grow in part of your orchard? Maybe you love apples and want 5 trees. It is easy to spray 5 trees. One thing i do at my orchard is plant things like autumn olive where other trees failed to grow. If i have a wet part of the orchard elderberries are a great addition there and can be grown spray free. In between high spray fruits you can plant others. When you plant your row of apples try to break the row up with persimmons or pawpaw or autumn olive in between the apples to stop diseases from freely going down the row. Lets say fireblight hits a pear because a bird landed there with the bacteria on its feet. If an autumn olive is the next bush over the fireblight wont spread. If it is a row of only pears planted close together it proceeds down the entire row. This i have learned the hard way
Hi Clark,
A good idea as many growers have different opinions about chemical use and desire to avoid spraying. It might however, be appropriate to modify the list between no spray and organic spray. As I reviewed your list, I noticed apples were missing. Here in my region there are only two insects that target apples: apple fly maggots and Codling moth. Both are very destructive and if not controlled can decimate the fruit of an entire tree. For many years I used chemical sprays until I learned about Surround kaolin clay.
It’s an organic spray I now use to avoid use of chemicals. I’m not sure it can prevent all insect damage for other fruits, but on apples it does wonders to prevent apple fly maggots damage, and to a lesser extent the Codling moth. For complete Codling moth control I use the bug zapper that I plug in at dusk until dawn each night during moth season. With the two treatments on all of my apples, I can avoid the laborious task of bagging the fruit and use Surround in lieu of other chemical insecticides. The clay is purely organic and washes off the fruit easily before eating. There may be other similar organic sprays that other growers use in lieu of chemical insecticides for various fruits other than apple. And other growers may know of other insects it can control. That information would be useful outside of my region where other types of insects may be an issue.
Here all of my plums do very well as a no spray, but in some areas that have curculio it’s essential to spray. I’m fortunate to not have this insect here, so I grow all plum varieties without spraying, except for aphids in the early spring before blossom time.
Take care
Dennis
Kent, wa
I grow most of what’s on your list and agree that they’re no spray. do you currently still grow buffalo berry Clark? ive been looking for cuttings for years. i would trade you for some male and female ones. autumn olive loves it in my gravelly part of my yard. likely id put the in the same area.
the silver is the more palatable one over the russet. just googled it. id take some cuttings if you would like to send some. is there something i could trade you for them?
Hmmm, I think we should include region, because no spray here and no spray there are two different things.
So, I guess the list for here in the upper South is:
No spray
Blackberries
Heat tolerant raspberries
Jujube
Pawpaw
Elaeagnus
Che
Kiwi
Pineapple guava
Prickly pear
Passion fruit
Low or possibly no spray
Figs
Persimmons
Mulberry
Strawberry (grown as annual)
Muscadine grapes
Blueberries
Chickasaw plum
Fruit or berry like annuals that are no spray
Litchi tomato
Pepino dulce
Physalis
Zone pushed plants tend to be no spray even if in their natural range they are disease magnets like citrus
Hardy citrus
Hardy guavas
Barbados cherry
Jelly palm
Cherry of the Rio Grande and other Eugenias
Annona
Etc
I would say most floricane raspberries are bulletproof no spray (floricane “summer bearing”); early summer avoids SWD (which can destroy primocane fall crops) and if in a raised bed with good soil, they will minimize phythophthora root rot and anthracnose)
Many commercial raspberry guys around here are tearing up their primocane beds and sticking with floricanes as traps and spraying are not effective for SWD or too much of a hassle and expense
In my experience they have resistance to black rot. If you raise something susceptible like red canadice they will begin to get the disease. If raised by themselves i grow them spray free
Honeyberries in my part of the world Pennsylvania are not no-spray. There is a cane boring insect (Honeysuckle Flatheaded Borer) that will decimate orchards. Just a heads up.